Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) has presented digital item adaptation (DIA), which is a new standard working item. A digital item (DI) means a structured digital object with a standard representation, identification and metadata, and DIA indicates a process for generating an adapted DI which is obtained after processed in a resource adaptation engine or descriptor adaptation engine.
Here, resource means an item that can be identified individually, such as video or audio, image or texture and the like. A descriptor means information related to an item or a component in the DI. Also, a user includes a producer, a rightful person, a distributor and a consumer all. Media resource stands for a content that can be expressed digitally immediately. Hereinafter, the word ‘content’ is used in the same meaning of DI, media resource and resource.
Conventional technologies have a problem that they cannot provide a single-source multi-use environment, in which one single audio content can be adapted to different usage environments by using information on the usage environment where the audio content is consumed, such as user characteristics, natural environment of a user, and capability of a user terminal.
“Single source” means one single content which is generated from a multimedia source, while “multi-use” means user terminals, each having a different usage environment, consume the “single source” adaptively to each usage environment.
An advantage of the single-source multi-use is that one content can be provided in diverse forms by reprocessing the content adaptively to different usage environments. Further, the single-source multi-use can make a network bandwidth decreased or used effectively when the single source adapted to the diverse usage environments is provided to user terminals.
Therefore, a content provider can reduce unnecessary cost that is generated when a plurality of contents are produced and transmitted to match audio signals with the diverse usage environments. A consumer of content also can overcome the spatial restriction of his/her environment and consume an optimal audio content that satisfies the hearing ability and preference of the content consumer.
However, the prior art does not make the best use of the advantage of using the single-source multi-use environment even in a universal multimedia access (UMA) environment.
That is, the multimedia source transmits an audio content indiscriminately with no consideration for usage environment, such as user characteristics, natural environment of a user, and the capability of a user terminal. Since the user terminal equipped with an audio player application, such as Windows Media Player, MP3 player, and Real Player, consumes the audio content whose form is as received from the multimedia source, it is not suitable for single-source multi-use environment.
To overcome the problems of the prior art and support the single-source multi-use environment, the multimedia source provides multimedia contents in consideration of various usage environment. However, this brings in much load in the generation and transmission of contents.